COMPUTER PROJECT - Nana Aframea Preparatory School (or NAPSCO)

Hello everyone,


I hope you are doing well! I want to update everyone on how the money raised before I went to Ghana (AUD900) was spent.


Firstly, lets get to know Abiriw (the town where NAPSCO is located) a little bit better. Abiriw is in the Eastern region of Ghana, between Akropong and Adukrom. It's a small town/big village with a taxi/tro-tro station and post office. The main road is surfaced, as well some conjoining roads. From my experience, the residents of Abiriw are characterised by their friendliness and curiosity towards foreigners. In short, I can't think of another place I'd rather spend 4 months working in.



When I came to NAPSCO in the beginning of July, the computer lab was out of order. This was due to multiple reasons. Rats had chewed through the connecting cords, there was water damage on some of the keyboards, and suspicion of theft of some of the system components. For these reasons, the students had to take their Computer Studies as a theory subject. When it came to the end of year exams in late July, I found that (having envigilated) most, if not all the students in Junior High struggled with the I.C.T. exam papers. After some evaluation of the school's needs and aspirations, i decided to spend the raised money on rehabilitating the school computers. The costs included new hard drives, memories, getting a carpenter in to secure the room properly.

My host-mother, Comfort outside the I.C.T room.

I'm still alive and in Ghana

Yes, its true i'm still here. But judging from my blog updates - or lack of - you wouldn't think so (sorry!).

So, its getting to the summer time. It's raining less and less (though there under-going a damn spillage at the moment for 3 days - that was for you dad). I woke up today and had that feeling of camping. When you wake up to the heat of the day and walk outside and smell the smoke of something cooking on the fire; its was Kenkey - lunch for the students at my school. My host-house is also where they prepare the school lunches. It was halloween on Sunday and, with an abundance of American and Canadian volunteers, a party went down at the local bar. There was a banana, a native american, a doctor, that girl from beetlejuice..., and other likewise flamboyant characters at the bar. We definitely attracted attention - whether positive or negative i'm not sure.

I'm leaving to go travelling in 2 weeks. I'll be really sad to say goodbye to everyone in the hills; the teacher, the students and my host-family, and friends that i've met along the way.

Monkeys!

Hey everyone. I hope you are well and happy! We've started back at NAPSCO, and still settling in to the new term. The headmaster has not promoted any of the year levels yet so I haven't been able to start with the new course work. Instead, we've been doing revision, which is hard for me to do since I don't know what to revise... but i'm really happy to be back at the preparatory school.

This weekend, I went, with 11 other volunteers to the Volta region (lake Volta). We stayed at a riverside hotel the first night which was good. It was not a nice river though so there was no swimming. The next day, we went to a monkey sanctuary. This was definitely the highlight for me. The mona monkeys are so attentive and interesting. One even sat on my arm in order the eat a banana I give him! Hahaha, and another volunteer Rob thought it was funny when I went into teacher mode' and told off one monkey for trying to take the banana intended for the other monkey.
The next day we stopped at a beautiful riverside restaurant where we swam and I had a fairly nice cheese sandwich (bluebell cheese, that is...).

Right now, in the internet cafe, its raining and thundering quite heavily so I have plenty of time to spend!
That's all for today - stay well.
Love.

Building progress;

Belated Blog

Wow, it really has been a long time since i've written a blog. I hope I won't miss anything. Right now i'm the only volunteer at my host-family's home. It's nice so far, different to being in group because the family have really accepted me as part of it. For example I eat with my (right) hand,
eat at the same time and place as the family, and watch the TV show tro-tro (or 'sweaar gaww' as Abby says) on tuesday 8.30pm.

The summer school went for 4 weeks and was really successful. I taught stage 2 with a fellow
teacher from a near-by school, Michael. It was so amazing with the kids. Without him I would have had no authority with them. He naturally took over the Maths and Science lessons and I did Creative Art and English (which often Michael would need to help me with since they are too young to understand my accent sometimes). I learnt some really nice local games (which I won't attemp to spell) involving hiding sticks, running around in circles, shaking your hips, and clapping, singing and dancing.

We visited the Projects Abroad farm, which (for me) was rather disappointingly small and
not progressive, but for the children they were amazed at the caged rabbits in a shed and
watching the farm manager hack corn off for them! The next day we planted our own onion seeds. Some of the kids drowned theirs, before they ever had a chance but by the end of the
program, I was so delighted to see that about 6 of the student's plants had sprouted!
The last the of summer school was so beautiful. We had an essembly and volunteers from other
projects came to watch. We danced (much less cooler than the students danced), had presentations of the students who performed and behaved the best, and then had a lunch afterwards with the music still going.

This week, I've been doing the building project before school starts back (next week).
Even after 2 days I'm arching so much! I think i'm getting pretty good at the chalking though!
That's where you fill in the gaps in the bricks with morter. Carrying bricks, however, I leave up to the guys. The volunteers have decreased drastically since school starts back in Europe & America. The people here now are mostly here for a long period.

I'm sure there is a ton of things that i've forgot to tell you about but, they can be saved
for when I sporadically bring them up in conversation when I return. but what I should
inform you of, is that i've extended my stay in Ghana but 2 months. I now leave Ghana on the 24th of November and go to the UK for 3 weeks, leaving there on the 15th of December.

take care,
love

Summer school

Last week was the last week of school before summer vacation (5 weeks long). I went to two meetings; a staff meeting and an Akropong Circuit Heads Association meeting (where the headmasters of schools in the area meet and discuss issues). I found it very hard to sit through these meetings. They were so drawn out and tedious! That week I also inspected the school's I.C.T. room, with all computers not functioning properly-we think due to theft! I have chosen to donate a portion of the funds raised to repairing the computers but also, improving the security of the room, so theft is not able to occur.

This weekend, a few volunteers and I went down to the beach west of Tadi. It was a LONG journey but worth it for the tranquility of the environment. The place we stayed was really nice, eco-friendly and very sustainable. Green Turtle Lodge. It was just strange because there were no Ghanaians lodging there, which makes sense since they're all working but just made me feel strange. On the tro ride back, I met an Israelian guy that spoke really good Twi. This made made me want to learn more. I was jealous that he was joking with the other passengers and I couldn't understand!

Today was the first of summer school. I'm teaching class 2 (from 6 to 8 year olds). They are really great but there is a vast diversity in ability in the class which is a challenge. And two students who speak no english. Today we did maths and drawing. The summer school goes from 8 to 12 noon, so i had a lot of free time! I pray everyone is well and happy

love.

Summer holidays

Last week was the last week of school before summer vacation (5 weeks long). I went to two meetings; a staff meeting and an Akropong Circuit Heads Association meeting (where the headmasters of schools in the area meet and discuss issues). I found it very hard to sit through these meetings. They were so drawn out and tedious!